With the exception of Herbert the Lion and Lambert's Bargain, about the birthday gift of a hyena, Newberry's subjects were all drawn from life. Her book Smudge was also one of the AIGA Fifty Books of the Year. Her four Caldecott Honor Books were Barkis, about a sister jealous of a brother's new puppy, Marshmallow, about the relationship between a cat and a baby rabbit, April's Kittens, about a family with an extra kitten in an apartment that permits only one cat, and T-Bone the Babysitter, about a cat with spring fever. It became a bestseller and was named one of the Fifty Books of the Year by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Her next book, Mittens, was the story of a six-year-old boy who posts an ad for his lost kitten. She had hoped to become a portrait painter, but she abandoned this in 1934 for cat illustration. The New York Times praised it as "refreshingly imaginative" and "full of high spirited nonsense". It was published as her first book, Herbert the Lion, to acclaim. The next year, in order to earn enough for passage to return to the US, she illustrated a story she had written before leaving for Paris, about a little girl named Sally who got a lion for her birthday. In 1930, she went to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |